


let the waters still

by reywrite



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Tried, Missing Scene, POV Loki (Marvel), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Siblings, because it's worth mentioning, hey real quick everyone, it's really not, little bit angsty but it has a happy ending, please don't read into this as incest, please enjoy anyway!, this is super self-indulgent and also super late but y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:46:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reywrite/pseuds/reywrite
Summary: *shows up 8 months late with starbucks* is it too late to write my own version of the hug scene?





	let the waters still

If Asgard is a people and not a place, well then, Loki is not on Asgard if he is not with Thor. 

Something clicks inside him when he is around Thor. His world has been flipped upside down so many times, but Thor is what makes it right. They are different sides of the same coin, and Loki absolutely _hates_ being away from his sunshine brother. So he isn’t quite sure why he keeps pushing Thor away. It might have something to do with that shadow he’d mentioned years ago on Midgard. 

But it doesn’t matter. He is here now, isn’t he?

The diamond-shaped wine stopper hits his hand and his heart twists in a familiar way. “I’m here.”

Loki barely has time to blink before he is enveloped in Thor’s strong embrace. The stopper falls to the floor, but he doesn’t notice. He can taste the electricity in the air around them. Thor’s back is strong and solid against his fingertips. 

His voice is quiet when he speaks, and shakier than he would like. “You couldn’t possibly lessen your death grip a little, brother mine?”

Thor’s response comes fast but sincere. “No. If I let you go, you might slither away.”

“I won’t. I’m done running. You are my king, and I will serve you in any way that I can.” He means it and he doesn’t. He still wants, more than anything, to get away, to win, to outshine Thor. But those same centuries-old chains are holding him to his place. He won’t break them for the moment—he owes Thor that, at least. 

“Truly?” Thor’s voice quakes, not something Loki is used to hearing. 

“Yes.” Loki pulls away enough to get a good look at Thor.

Thor looks the same as he always has, and yet so, so different. His hair and his eye are the obvious differences, but Loki doesn’t overlook the others. Thor’s grin is less sunny than it used to be, his eye less bright. The lines of his face now tell a story, one of hardship and loss. Loki knows he’s probably been the cause of some of that, and his stomach feels hollow. 

“You look older,” he finally says. “I’m not sure I like that.”

Thor laughs, but it is a quiet laugh, one that makes Loki wonder if Thor has guessed at his thoughts. “Such is the price of being king.”

Loki responds to that with a soft smile. The problem with Thor is that he has always made Loki _feel_. Thor is such an emotional creature, you can’t help but be caught up in his whirlwind. That wasn’t always a bad thing—sometimes it meant Loki could find himself actually enjoying one of the dull parties he used to be forced to go to, to celebrate a successful hunt, or a won battle. But in other moments, now, for example, it meant Loki was forced to feel remorse, regret…grief. 

He is suddenly hit with a strange nostalgia for the old days. His head hurts, and he wishes he could go back home. Memories flood his mind: Thor letting himself into Loki’s chambers to try to drag him out to play, the two of them sneaking out to steal a ride on Slepnir, Loki practicing his magic on Thor, Thor teaching Loki how to braid hair. Loki lets out a choked noise that might be a sob, reaching out for Thor.

Loki curses himself for showing this level of emotion, ( _no, what are you doing, don’t act like this. he doesn’t care, he never has. you don’t care, you never should have. _) but Thor only sighs and pulls Loki back in. Loki buries his nose in Thor’s shoulder, and breathes in. Thor smells like he always has, of rain and leather and the great outdoors. And Thor’s voice, when he speaks, sounds like it always has. It is low, and rumbling, like the thunder he commands. “I know, I know. I miss it too.”__

"I’m _sorry_ —“ 

__“As am I. You aren’t the only one at fault here, I…I know that now.” Loki doesn’t have to look up, he knows Thor is crying too, from the quiver in his voice and the way his chest heaves against Loki’s.__

____

They stay like that, holding each other, for what might have been eternity. Their tears are made of the molten gold that was Asgard’s palace. 

____

Loki cries for lost knowledge, for the libraries full of dusty tomes he spent so many hours in, and for the gardens where he so loved to take evening walks. He cries for the mother who loved him more than she should have, and who spent those long hours teaching him the inner workings of seidr. ( _you should have loved her more when you had the chance_ -) 

Loki can only assume Thor cries for similar reasons—for the training grounds he spent so much time in, and for the great hall he had loved to entertain his friends in. And, of course, for the father who had given him all that he could. (- _and you shouldn't miss him, that monster. odin is not worth your tears._ ) 

The gravity of their loss hits him all at once, and it’s all Loki can do to stay on his feet. Never again would he see Asgard’s ethereal beauty. Almost everyone he has ever known now walks the halls of Valhalla. Loki would have thought it below him to grieve like this, he has always moved forward almost instantly in the face of loss, but suddenly he can’t breathe with the weight of it all. 

__He isn’t used to this at all, but he doesn’t know how to stop. All those years of erasing feelings and making his mind a blank slate are failing him now. He can’t think straight with all these emotions in the way. He wonders absentmindedly how Thor manages to live like this._ _

__After a long time, neither knows exactly how long, Thor pulls back, pressing a kiss to the top of Loki’s head. “Come on, there’s work to be done.”_ _

__Loki blinks, and looks up at Thor. His cool green gaze is met with the same affectionate blue one he’s known all his life, and he knows then that he will stay, for as long as the Norns will let him._ _

______ _ _

__“I’d bet I’ll be doing most of that work, you witless oaf.”_ _

______ _ _

__Thor laughs at that. “I love you, Loki.”_ _

______ _ _

Loki snorts, but he leaves what they both know to be true unsaid. 

( _I love you too. I always have._ ) 

__Side by side, they head out to start on one of the many, many tasks on the newly crowned king’s list._ _

______ _ _

__Loki’s heart is still wounded. It is still the twisted black thing it has grown to be over the centuries of hurt. But it beats now, because he has a purpose, and because for once he feels loved. He can’t understand why Thor still loves him, but he accepts it as fact, and that is at least a step in the right direction._ _

______ _ _

__Of course, his days of transforming into objects and stabbing Thor are far from over. They are brothers after all, and Loki will be nothing but himself, ever the god of chaos._ _

( _and maybe the monster can become less of one, if he can learn how to love again._ ) 


End file.
